Mighty Morphin Power Rangers 2018 Annual
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers 2018 Annual is the third annual issue of Boom! Studios ongoing comic book series, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (Boom! Studios). While the original comic centers on the Mighty Morphin team, the annual contains several short stories that are part of the "Shattered Grid" storyline. Chronolgically, this Annual follows the 26th issue of the main series and is concurrent with the 2018 Free Comic Book Day issue . Synopsis Featuring fan-favorite teams from across the Power Rangers universe - Dino Charge, RPM, Time Force, Ninja Steel, Dino Thunder - the entire fabric of reality is under threat as Drakkon invades! Plot Tommy Oliver is dead. In an attempt to protect all of reality from the resulting paradox, the Morphin Grid has fractured our world. Time and space are in flux. Every Rangers team exists at once. And they're all targets for Lord Drakkon. These are stories from across the Shattered Grid. - From the Introduction to the Annual The 2018 Annual is a collection of five stories as Lord Drakkon , the evil version of Tommy Oliver from the World of the Coinless , goes to five different points in Rangers history to get more power. Chronologically, these stories presumably take place after the events of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers #26 and concurrently with the event of the 2018 Free Comic Book Day issue and possibly with Mighty Morphin Power Rangers #27 . Power Rangers: Zeo The Zeo Rangers are fighting a group of Cogs, trying to finish defeating them before a special event at the Power Chamber . While the others finish up the fight, Tommy Oliver teleports back to his home, while someone watches from a distance. The Zeo Rangers then meet up again at the Power Chamber for a special farewell party to Jason Lee Scott, who is returning to civilian life after he had give his Gold Zeo Ranger powers back to Trey of Triforia . At the party the Zeo Rangers gave Jason back his Tyrannosaurus Power Coin and Red Ranger Morpher, which had been repaired by Billy but could not function like it once had. Later, Jason and Tommy chat on the roof of the old Command Center; reminiscing about their friendship and their shared history. Tommy asks Jason point blank what he thought of Tommy after breaking Rita's spell. Jason replies that because he's been in darker situations, the other Rangers know that they can and will perservere. That night, Jason says goodbye, tells the Zeo Rangers to take care of his best friend, and is teleported away. After the party, the Rangers clean up the Power Chamber, while Tommy lurks in the corner. He then teleports away, taking Adam's Green Zeonizer. Tommy returns to his dorm room, to find the real Tommy of the Zeo Rangers shackled to a chair; the Tommy at the party was Lord Drakkon in disguise. Drakkon revealed that he had planned on killing all of the Zeo Rangers, but was startled and puzzled by how much they look up to to Tommy. Suddenly, Drakkon takes the decapitated Saba from the World of the Coinless and slashes Tommy's throat, leaving him dead; thus being the second Tommy Oliver to be killed by Drakkon. Power Rangers: SPD In the year 2050, at Delta Base, Chief Anubis “Doggie ” Cruger is lecturing the C-Squad Rangers after they were defeated in a combat exercise by the B-Squad Rangers, saying that teamwork is more important than the Morphers, and the root of success of the SPD . As Doggie is about to punish the B-Squad for snarky comments, a portal opens with Drakkon’s army coming through led by the new Green Zeo Sentries in their exo-suit tanks. When Bridge tries to read the aura of the attackers, he realizes that they’re Rangers. It was at this point that the B-Squad and Doggie Morphed and attacked. Drakkon arrives and has two of his Mastodon Sentries fire a Dragon Cannon, which disconnects Doggie and the B-Squad. Sky manages to project a force field while the B- and C-Squads retreat. Kat Manx and Boom, who are locked in the command center, tell Doggie that there’s a modified version of the R.I.C. that is stuck in a hangar that lost power. While the B- and C- squads hold off Drakkon’s forces, C-Squad member Konchu uses the insect colony that comprises their body to pick the lock. They succeed and Boom is revealed with the new, super-sized R.I.C. 3.0. With this, and the timely arrivals of Supreme Commander Fowler Birdie and Sergeant Silverback, they turn the tide of the battle. As the R.I.C. 3.0 is about to chomp down on him, Drakkon and his forces teleport away. Power Rangers: RPM A figure is seen on a motorcycle, racing to the domed city of Corinth. Coronel Truman sees the figure being pursued by Grinders and other unknown pursuants and orders that the dome be lowered and that this person be let in. The person on the motorcycle is none other than Lord Drakkon (known only to the reader); stating that he must see Doctor K immediately as he has a way to defeat the Venjix . When Truman says that no one sees her, Doctor K interrupts him through his earpiece saying that he is to send the visitor to her immediately. Meanwhile, Doctor K is yelling at the Ranger Operators since they brought her a birthday cake; which she detests as it reminds her of her childhood traumas endured at the think-tank Alphabet Soup. Suddenly, Drakkon’s beeping bike opens a portal inside Corinth and his forces emerge; led by the Blue Samurai Sentries . The Ranger Operators morph and fight, and manage to keep Drakkon’s forces at bay, except for when the Mastodon Sentries use Black Dragon Cannon to disconnect Ranger Operator Series Black from his powers. Meanwhile, while the fight is going on, Drakkon sneaks into Doctor K’s lab; saying he admires her for getting the closest of anyone he’s met to conquering the world. Drakkon states that the Venjix virus (which Doctor K created only to escape from Alphabet Soup) wiped out 90% of the world’s population, and that her leadership has kept the remaining 10% safe and given them purpose to defeat an enemy she created; in other words, she has created peace and order on her Earth whether she intended it or not. Drakkon then offers her to join him, saying that he has Venjix on his side and if she doesn’t he will destroy Corinth. As the Ranger Operators are turning the tide of the battle and racing in to check on her, they see Doctor K shoot Lord Drakkon; who turned out to be a Venjix android. She then retires to her chambers; eating her birthday cake through her tears. Power Rangers: In Space Somewhere, the Astro Megaship is silently and slowly moving through space. The Rangers are bored as they drift through space with no emergency calls to respond to. T.J gets fed up of playing cards and sitting around and gets in an argument with Andros that they should be more pro-active in defending the galaxy instead of waiting for trouble to arrive. Andros decides to let T.J. fix Airlock 88 as Alpha requested earlier as part of a punishment for insubordination, and T.J will not be relieved of duty until he completes the assignment. T.J. storms off, with DECA observing him in the hallway and observing the conversation between Ashley and Andros. Ashley is trying to explain to Andros that he should be more considerate of T.J.’s feelings while Andros argues that T.J. needs to learn he is no longer in command of the team and needs to accept that. The Rangers are unaware that Lord Drakkon has invaded the ship’s security room and his forces are trying to reprogram DECA to assume control. Lord Drakkon threatens DECA when she tries to resist to comply to his commands or Finster 5 will activate her self destruct sequence and bypass all her failsafes to stop it to destroy the Astro Megaship when they leave. Alpha is in the control room working on the central computer which has multiple corrupted files and code emerging and tries to patch it. Lord Drakkon enters the room to stop his efforts and captures him. At Airlock 88, T.J. finds that one of the connections has been severed. DECA contacts T.J. and pleads for him to hide somewhere as she cannot fight off Drakkon’s control for much longer. T.J. stubbornly refuses and wants to know what is going on. Lord Drakkon speaks to the Rangers over the intercom, demanding the Rangers to surrender their morphers or he will terminate Alpha, whose head is gripped tightly in Lord Drakkon’s hand and pressed against a console. He tortures Alpha by pressing down harder to begin crushing him to get his point across, which causes Alpha to plead for help. Drakkon then threatens to take the Morphers from their corpses if they resist. Unwilling to comply with the insane villain’s demands, Ashley and Andros morph. The morph is detected by Drakkon and he decides to “punish” the foolish leader of this team for not following his instructions by killing Alpha with his brutal strength crushing the robot’s head. Ashley and Andros arrive in the control room, Andros is hit by a Dragon Cannon and de-powered, while Ashley is pinned down. Drakkon demands to know where the others are, but Andros has no idea. Drakkon mocks the young Red Ranger’s poor leadership and orders his Sentries to locate the Blue Ranger. T.J. calls out Drakkon from a point hidden from the sensors and hacks the systems to initiate the ships conversion to Megazord mode to throw the invading party off balance as the rooms move sideways. An enraged Drakkon calls out Finster 5’s incompetence for losing control and heads to Airlock 88 to deal with T.J. He enters the airlock and T.J. tries to rig the door to open to suck Drakkon into space. But Lord Drakkon lunges at T.J., steals his Astro Morpher and then severs the oxygen tether to T.J’s breathing mask to send the young Ranger out the airlock and hurtling helplessly into vacuum of space. Lord Drakkon seals the door and tells his troops to fall back as he has claimed another morpher. Andros tries to contact everyone on the intercom and asks where T.J. is, unaware that T.J is outside, slowly freezing into ice from the cold of space and running out of oxygen as the broken tether leaks out his air! ‘’To Be Continued in Shattered Grid....’’ Power Rangers: Ninja Steel The story opens with Brody telling his teammates about a recurring nightmare where Madame Odious and her forces launch an attack that resulted in the deaths of the entire Ninja Steel team, ending with him being killed by Madame Odious and then waking up screaming. Preston and Calvin try to reassure him that will never happen, but Brody is worried as their victories are getting narrower in each battle. Struggling with this fear and uncertainty, Brody decides to go wash his truck to take his mind off of the stressful thoughts. He then sees his Ninja Star Blade and his Ninja Power Star on the ground. Lord Drakkon appears and attacks, demanding the leader of Ninja Steel hand over his morpher. Brody is at first confused why a Ranger would attack him but then quickly morphs to defend himself. He manages to overwhelm the Ranger Sentries with his ninja powers, but Lord Drakkon proves to be too powerful for him and his morpher is stolen from him. Rather than kneel to the villain, the un-morphed Brody charges at him and then shatters his Ninja Power Star, denying Lord Drakkon of his prize. Drakkon admits that was a brave move, but ultimately foolish and revels at the thought of killing another Ranger as he prepares to strike Brody down with his blade. The other Ninja Steel Rangers arrive and Aiden angrily tells Drakkon to get away from his brother. Mick and Dane help carry Brody to safety, who is in shock from losing his powers and the Ninja Nexus Prism not able to re-create his star. The Ninja Steel team successfully manage to fend Lord Drakkon off and overwhelm him using teamwork (and the added bonus of Brody already taking out a majority of the Ranger Sentries gives them the edge). Lord Drakkon knows he will possibly lose if he keeps fighting and retreats into a portal back to his universe, but swears he will return. Later, Mick has fixed Brody’s Ninja Power Star and Morpher. Brody thanks him and his team and realized that he has nothing to fear as there is no obstacle they cannot overcome as a team working together. As most of the team gets in on a group hug, Redbot informs Brody that he finished analyzing the energy signature of the portal Lord Drakkon used to escape and cannot match it to anything in his database or trace it. Brody shows concern, as he reveals that part of his broken Ninja Power Star was taken by Lord Drakkon. Back in the World of the Coinless, Finster 5 examines the shard of the Ninja Power Star and wonders what it is. Lord Drakkon explains that it is the key to the strength of the Ninja Steel Rangers and orders Finster 5 to melt it down, as he has an idea on how it can be used for his sinister plans... ‘’To Be Continued....’’ Covers boom-2018annual-caltsoudas.jpg|Main Cover George Caltsoudas boom-2018annual-mora.jpg|Dan Mora boom-2018annual-taylor.jpg|Matt Taylor boom-2018annual-caltsoudas2nd.jpg|George Caltsoudas Errors *The solicit mentions Time Force, Dino Thunder, and Dino Charge but the comic has Zeo, In Space, SPD, RPM, and Ninja Steel instead. **It is possible that the comic had been re-written after the solicitation was given. Notes *In terms of the "Shattered Grid" storyline continuity, the events of this issue take place after Issue 26 of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, and presumably concurrently with the events of the 2018 Free Comic Book Day issue. Additionally both the Zeo and RPM stories have to happen before Issue 27 as those events (such as Drakkon spending time with the Zeo Rangers and his offer to Doctor K) are referenced. *This issue marks the first comic appearances of both the Green Zeo Sentries and Blue Samurai Sentries . *During the RPM story, Drakkon makes an offer to Doctor K to join his forces. He also makes reference that he has made a similar offer to the Venjix. By Issue 27, Drakkon will have made offers to other Power Rangers villians to join his side. *During the RPM story, the Ranger Operators managed to turn the tide of the battle culminating in Issue 27 when Doctor K makes the breakthrough of reversing the effects of the Black Dragon Cannon. This is presumably tied into the fact that the RPM universe is set in a parallel world from the main Power Rangers timeline. *Though they are seperate from the TV continuity, the Ranger timelines can be seen to roughly correspond or diverge from points in their respective series' run: **''Power Rangers Zeo:'' Gives an explicitly divergent account of the series' history; Jason resigns Gold Zeo Ranger while the fight against the Machine Empire is ongoing while Tommy is abducted and briefly replaced before being murdered by Lord Drakkon, who makes off with Adam's Zeonizer. **''Power Rangers SPD:'' The Omega Ranger is absent, indicating that he has yet to appear. **''Power Rangers RPM:'' There are five Ranger Operators; Gem and Gemma are mentioned but aren't shown as Ranger Operator Series Gold and Silver. It is noted that Ranger Red displays no familiarity with the Blue Samurai Sentries, indicating that the equivalent of Clash of the Red Rangers - The Movie has not occur; indeed, Lauren Shiba's appearance in Issue #27 creates an alternate meeting between RPM and Samurai. **''Power Rangers In Space:'' There are five Space Rangers aboard the Astro Megaship; Zhane the Silver Ranger is absent. It is noted that at least T.J. Johnson held a prior Ranger identity, that of Red Ranger, prior to becoming the Blue Space Ranger, acknowledging his debut in Power Rangers Turbo. **''Power Rangers Ninja Steel:'' Takes place during the equivalent of Power Rangers Super Ninja Steel, Dane and Mick's temporary morphs into Ninja Steel Red, which occured in the first season finale Galvanax Rises, are mentioned. *With the appearance of Boom and Mick Kanic in the stories for SPD and Ninja Steel respectively, this Annual features two characters originally portrayed by Kelson Henderson.